By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — To those participating in equestrian sports from around the world, the Fairfield County Hunt Club is a premiere venue for equestrian competition and events. 

For Mario DiPreta, the hunt club’s new general manager, the Long Lots Road club is “a peaceful place,” a “home away from home,” for members, and a place where the Westport community can enjoy the excitement of international horse shows and other events held there each year, he said.

DiPreta, who started his new position in January, was the chief executive officer and general manager of the West Side Tennis Club and Forest Hills Stadium in Forest Hills, N.Y., where the U.S. Tennis Open Championships were once held. 

He was also the chief operating officer of a golf club in Westchester County, N.Y., for 15 years, and held positions in several other private clubs and restaurants. He is a graduate of the New York Restaurant School, now part of The New School, and began his career as a chef.

DiPreta’s resume may encompass 20 years of diverse experience in private club management and hospitality services, but his arrival in Westport is not just the result of his years in the club world. It’s because his 12-year-old daughter loves horses.

The young equestrian got her father interested in horse shows and equestrian competitions, he said, and he first learned of the Fairfield County Hunt Club through her. The Westport club is world renowned in equestrian sports, DiPreta said, and active riders know it well. The club’s annual June horse show attracts equestrians from all over the world, he said.

For DiPreta, “It’s a perfect fit.”

DiPreta succeeded Carla Nelson, who was the general manager at the club for more than  30 years. He said he is grateful for Nelson’s help at the beginning of his tenure before she retired.

“Mario has the style, personality and expertise to be not only a great fit but also a tremendous asset to our club,” said Benedicte Berg, president of hunt club’s Board of Governors, who led a committee to fill the position vacated by Nelson. 

“Carla leaves big shoes to fill, and we feel confident that Mario is the right person for the job.” 

Now DiPreta supervises 80 to 100 staff members at the club during the season from April to early October, with a smaller staff of 40 during the winter. He oversees the club restaurant, which is open all year for members, as well as tennis facilities, a pool with various activities for children and adults, several show rings for horse shows, competitions and polo games, and barns housing between 50 to 80 horses, depending on the season.

The club’s annual June horse show, planned this year from June 21-25, has been attracting hundreds of riders and equestrian aficionados from all over the world for the past 99 years, he said. The event is open to Westporters, and anyone who wants to watch national and local riders compete.

Managing it all is not an easy job. “To work in this business, you have to have a passion for it,” DiPreta said, and he does.

A native of Bronx, N.Y., DiPreta initially was an engineering student, which he found boring. He was far more interested in the work he did in a restaurant where he was employed during his schooling, and decided on a culinary career, which led him into restaurant and club management.

Although he enjoyed cooking — and still does — “I wanted to get into the front of the house,” he recalled, and took a series of management positions at different levels in the hospitality business, beginning with dining room manager to general manager, also known as club CEO, where he is now. 

“What I do is very rewarding,” he said.

DiPreta and his family also moved over the years, from Queens, N.Y., to Westchester County to Greenwich – where they lived for 12 years – and they now reside in South Salem, N.Y.

The new general manager’s goal is to maintain the hunt club as a peaceful oasis for all who are members or who visit the 40-acre property.

One member who said she found the hunt club’s peacefulness had a healing effect during the pandemic is Julie Faith Fischman, a Fairfield resident astride the horse, Saludo, on a recent Friday afternoon in one of the club’s indoor rings.

“I rode as a kid when I was 12 or 13,” she said, but then didn’t ride for the next 25 years. She moved to Connecticut during the pandemic and took up riding again at the club, which she remembered from her childhood as a place to watch horse shows. Now she rides there six days a week.

“I needed to find something … It’s been amazing,” she said as she and her horse took a break from a turn around the ring.

She cautioned that relearning to ride a horse is not like riding a bike, which many people believe can be taken up again easily as an adult, she said. “It’s taken time to relearn the skills,” she said. But for her, it has been worth it. Getting comfortable with riding again has brought her comfort and peace, she said.

Many people fled large cities during the pandemic, DiPreta noted, and “there has been a surge in members in the private club industry.” 

The Fairfield County Hunt Club membership also increased to about 250 members, he said. “But we still have room for new members.”

The attraction of the club, he believes, is the quiet atmosphere, the presence of horses and a well-established and well-run facility – which DiPreta hopes to continue to manage with the same success as his predecessor.